1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semi-solid pharmaceutical agent and a process for producing the same, in particular, a stabilized semi-solid pharmaceutical agent with proteinaceous bioactive substances and a process for producing the same.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Semi-solid pharmaceutical agents containing chemicals as effective ingredient such as those in ointment or suppository form have been produced hitherto by simply kneading effective ingredients and bases. In case the effective ingredients are proteinaceous bioactive substances such as cytokines and hormones which are relatively labile, unlike chemicals, if one kneads them into semi-solid, then he or she will find that they have been already inactivated or they are still susceptible to inactivation and this renders such a semisolid infeasible unsuitable for actual uses.
Because of this, proteinaceous bioactive substances have been prepared into liquid forms where their activities were stably retained and then administered by injection through subcutaneous or intramuscular route in order for treatment of susceptable diseases, for example, immunopathies, viral disease, abnormalities in hormone secretion and malignant tumors.
While proteinaceous bioactive substances were found latter to be very efficacious in treatment of trauma in the skin and mucous membranes as well as of such a susceptible disease, therefore other administration methods such as percutaneous and permucosal injections, which are usually deemed to be safer and less painful, have been preferred. Thus development of semi-solid pharmaceutical agents using proteinaceous bioactive substances in stabilized form has been in great demand.